DISTRIBUTIONS OF REAL INCOME: WITHIN COUNTRIES AND BY WORLD INCOME CLASSES

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Abstract
Income and expenditure data from 14 countries (representing one‐third of the world's population), mostly from the 1970s, are used to construct national income distributionsand, after normalizing by purchasing power parities, to construct a “world” distribution ofrealincome. The density of real‐income equivalent groups (socio‐economic classes) across countries is measured for the “affluent,” the “well‐off,” and the “poor.” In comparison with earlier studies, most national distributions of income seem to have been improving, the numbers of those in poverty (based on real income) are lower, and, most important (and disturbing for some) is that the “affluent” class (and those above “middle class” income levels) has (prematurely) swelled in a number of developing countries.